Course Data

Room 3226~T 110-310

Pass/Fail: Yes

Credit Rule: 60

This course provides a hands-on, experiential introduction to international commercial arbitration, the most important means of resolving international commercial disputes. Anyone interested in business law and practice or international law should consider taking this course.

The course integrates traditional classroom teaching with a substantial skills-development component. The course is organized around the Vis Moot Arbitration contest, a premier international student moot. If you would like to participate in the Vis Moot Arbitration, you must first take this course. Try-outs for the Vis will be integrated into the course.

During the first month of the fall semester we will examine in detail the rules governing international commercial arbitration. Then, in October and November, students will break out into litigation teams and each team will be responsible for researching and writing a professional-quality claimant's memorandum based on the current problem for the Vis Moot Arbitration contest. Finally, each litigation team will argue a portion of its brief orally to a panel of student "arbitrators". Students will receive three credits for the course. The course is mandatory for students who wish to try out for UW Law School's official Vis team, which competes in the Vis contest in Vienna and Hong Kong during the spring semester.

NEW TO THIS YEAR: Lectures will be based around an inexpensive arbitration hornbook, rather than a traditional casebook, saving the students substantial money.